


what i'm made for has always been you

by tin_girl



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: IT Chapter Two Fix-It, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019), Pre-IT Chapter Two (2019), also the most introspective, this is the most dramatic thing I've ever written, this made me realize i'd rather spend an hour in the derry sewer system than be in richie's head
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:02:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26408416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tin_girl/pseuds/tin_girl
Summary: The reason it all goes to shit is that Richie decides to forget Eddie by remembering him.(Richie hasn’t had a best friend since Derry. Not that opportunities haven’t presented themselves, but it always felt disloyal, getting close to people, even in those once-upon-a-time days when he still knew how and didn’t exactly remember why he shouldn’t. It felt disloyal even when he didn’t remember what it was he was being disloyalto.)
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 8
Kudos: 32





	what i'm made for has always been you

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe this is the third IT fanfic i'm posting and it hasn't even been a week, like, I used to have a life once, I think 
> 
> This is set mostly pre, during, and post the second movie but has some moments from their childhood, too. A content warning for descriptions of dreams in which people die (nowhere near the canon level of explicit, though)

What am I, if not yours?

What do I do with my hands

when they are just hands?

~Olivia Gatwood, _The Lover as a Cult_

The reason it all goes to shit is that Richie decides to forget Eddie by remembering him.

There’s not much he remembers about Derry besides how the sun there seemed like a hole forced in the sky rather than the real thing, but he remembers this: Eddie licking ice cream off his lip, and shame low in Richie’s stomach, shame everywhere else too, in his chest, under his tongue, in his knee.

What he decides one night, mixing alcohols like he’s never learned any better, is this: he’s going to have a conversation with himself, one that is long overdue. He’s going to sit himself down, and he’s going to tell himself all the things he’s never dared admit, and then, perhaps, Eddie will stop dying all the time.

It’s not that Eddie ever _really_ dies, it’s that he dies every time Richie sleeps, and by now, Richie’s not quite sure when he sleeps and when he’s awake.

The first time it happened, he fell asleep curled up on a park bench after having fed birds crumbs that he’d had in his pockets for months, and he only fell asleep there because he couldn’t stand sleeping in his apartment, which was fireplace-less and tv-less and something-else-fuck-knows-what-less. In the dream, he was walking down a street full of yellow taxis, as if his brain couldn’t think of a better New York giveaway, and suddenly there was Eddie, standing at the side of the road in a fucking trench coat, of all things. (The trench coat was how Richie knew for sure that it must have been a dream, but it still felt pretty real when) Richie called out his name, except instead of Eddie, it came out love, and because Eddie wasn’t the sort of person to turn when someone calls ‘love’ in the street, he never saw one of those ugly taxis coming.

The second time it happened, Richie fell asleep contorted in a plastic chair after one of his shows, and he only fell asleep there because he’d gotten a plant, he’d gotten a cactus, something that wouldn’t die, and then the damned thing went and died on him anyway. In the dream, he was walking down a street with no yellow taxis in it, and suddenly there was Eddie, standing at the side of the road in a fucking bathrobe, of all things, like he’d only come out to collect a newspaper, because _sometimes that’s all it takes_. (The bathrobe was how Richie knew that surely, _surely_ , it wasn’t just a dream, and so it felt real when) Richie called out love, except instead of love, it came out Eds, and because Eddie was the sort of person who hated being called Eds (only, did he really? Richie had always wondered), he turned his head to glare at Richie, and never saw one of those not-taxis coming.

The third time it happened, the dream (dream? _dream_?) didn’t end with a car slamming into Eddie. The third time it happened, the dream ended with Richie crawling to Eddie, knees sliding in Eddie’s blood, and that’s what Richie’s clothes had been made for, wasn’t it? Made for getting to Eddie through Eddie’s blood, and maybe that’s what Richie had been made for himself. When he woke up breathless in the middle of the night, Richie patted himself down frantically to check for blood, found none, and crawled in his shower anyway. He turned the water on, cold (“For blood, it’s always cold water,” a red-haired girl he didn’t have the energy to properly remember told him once, and he remembered wondering how she knew), and sat under the spray, ugly pajamas and all.

The fourth time it happened, it didn’t happen, because Richie didn’t sleep for three days.

The fourth time it _actually_ happened, Richie woke up crying.

The fifth time it happened, he didn’t wake up for so long that he started thinking he never would.

The sixth time it happened, he didn’t _want_ to wake up, wanted to stay inside the dream cradling still-warm Eddie’s head to his chest and keeping him from getting cold (oh, please, don’t ever be cold), but woke up anyway.

The seventy-eighth time it happens, Richie does sit himself down, and does try to tell himself the truth, but ends up hitting himself in the face instead. Later, he has a black eye that doesn’t make him look attractive or mysterious, not even when he squints, and he still can’t help but remember his best friend.

(Richie hasn’t had a best friend since Derry. Not that opportunities haven’t presented themselves, but it always felt disloyal, getting close to people, even in those once-upon-a-time days when he still knew how and didn’t exactly remember why he shouldn’t. It felt disloyal even when he didn’t remember what it was he was being disloyal _to_.)

(He hasn’t had a not-best-friend either, no one to put magnets on his fridge and revive his plants for him and call him to say goodnight – Christ, maybe that’s why no nights were ever good.)

By the time Mike Hanlon calls, the black eye has faded, but, just before he throws up, Richie can feel it hurting all over again.

*

When they’re kids, Richie realizes it like this: he doesn’t. He says things to get Eddie angry – and in this, everything is fair, anything will do – and Eddie does get angry, and stares at Richie, furious, and stares at Richie, furious, and stares at Richie, furious, and truth is, Richie doesn’t mind him furious as long as he—

As long as he has him.

That summer they’re trying to live despite It, Richie comes back home late each night, with skinned knees and skinned elbows and skinned heart, and his mother grunts an acknowledgment when he creaks the front door open only sometimes, and his father never looks up from his newspaper. It’s only Eddie who asks him, one morning, did you get home okay last night?

“Did you get home okay last night?” he says, simple as that, even though Eddie is the last person Richie would expect to admit to caring (besides himself, of course, ha), and even though Richie is there with him, the living proof that he did, in fact, get home okay.

He only says the bit about having gotten okay into Eddie’s mom’s bed alright because it’s either that or falling apart on spot, and he can’t afford the latter, can he? After all, he hasn’t learned how to put himself back together just yet, and it seems criminally childish, crying when one doesn’t even know how to wipe one’s eyes.

*

Inside the plane, Richie thinks, crash.

He props his chin on his hand, stares out the window where he can just make out the side of the plane’s wing, and thinks, come on, you old tin, just crash already.

(Just crash already because I’m not even done remembering.)

Just crash already because I still haven’t forgotten.

*

Except maybe he does realize, because, in the end, Richie ends up loving Eddie well before he even learns how to love someone. They’re in the Well House, and Eddie is taken from him, and Richie doesn’t have the strength to take the house apart floorboard by floorboard in search of him, so he follows his voice instead. He does have the strength to set Eddie’s arm for him, and he’s not sure what he feels as he does so, except for how his own arm hurts, how _everything_ hurts.

Later, he stares at his hands, and thinks, so this is what you’re good for, except it comes out wrong in his head, it comes out, so this is what you’re bad for.

*

When Richie sees Eddie at Jade of the Orient, something in his chest opens, which is ridiculous, because it was never closed in the first place.

The thing is, seeing every single one of them is a heartbreak, but seeing Eddie is not seeing anything else. It’s always been like this, even though, in all honestly, because of all kinds of fear, Richie never got to spend that much time looking at Eddie at all. Instead, he was always busy looking everywhere else.

He pretends to be bored by Eddie’s job, because he’s never known how to be charming, not _really_ , so why keep trying, but the truth is, what he wants most is to ask, Eddie, hey Eds, when you need to remember something, do you set a reminder on your phone, or do you write a post-it, and if you write post-it notes, where do you leave them and what do they say? Eddie, hey, Eds, how do you eat your eggs, and is your favorite ice cream flavor the same as back then, or have you forgotten that ice cream can be eaten and now only ever walk past it? Eddie, hey, Eds, do you talk to pigeons, too? Surely not, a busy guy like you, and whatever you’re busy with, I do want to know every detail, I swear.

The last few decades of Richie’s life – they’re not worth much. He’d gladly leave it all in the Derry sewers to be forgotten, and good riddance.

Now, Eddie’s life – that’s what he could never bear seeing wasted.

Richie is a coward, sure, and, later, he almost runs from Derry before they have a chance to at least try, _sure_ , but here’s the thing: in the end, he stays, and he doesn’t stay for the Derry kids, and he sure as hell doesn’t stay for It. The reason why he stays is this: he can’t bear to have Eddie come back to his life that, Richie knows by now, is unhappy, devoid of post-it notes and eggs made the way Eddie likes, and he can’t bear to leave Eddie here either: he’d trust the Losers with his own life, but he doesn’t trust them with Eddie’s. Truth is, he needs Eddie taken care of, and whether Eddie wants it or not, no one is up for the job except Richie himself. Even he’s not _good_ for it, nowhere near, but well, he’ll just have to fucking do.

He’ll just have to do.

*

It’s really rather accurate, that they call him Trashmouth. His mouth _is_ trash, and so it’s sort of unspeakable, what Richie wants to do with it whenever Eddie laughs.

(Nothing filthy, no, just – there’s that mole behind Eddie’s ear. There’s that mole behind Eddie’s ear, and Richie thinks that if he could touch it just once, it’d be enough, it’d last him a lifetime.)

*

At night, he sits in front of Eddie’s hotel room, holding a pocket knife, and doesn’t sleep. There’s not much he can do with a knife like that, true, but _Christ_.

He’s never been self-absorbed enough to believe that he’s any good at the things he was made for. He was made for them, all the same.

*

He loses sight of Eddie once, and It takes Eddie because that’s what It _does_. 29 Neibolt Street never happens again, but for Richie, it happens every night.

*

So Eddie keeps dying and Richie knows what the world is trying to tell him, and _fuck_ the world. Richie’s had enough and he’s angry. He’s fucking _pissed_. In his dreams, Eddie gets hit by cars, gets shot, gets mauled, gets beaten to death, gets pushed off bridges, and Richie gets to hold him after only half the time. He’s spent so much time watching Eddie die, and God, is it really such a fucking crime that, for once, just for a little bit, he wants to see Eddie _live_?

If he had the courage, he’d ask Eddie if his wife loves him the way Richie never got to. Tell me, Eddie, he thinks, staring at the wound in Eddie’s cheek, does she know that spending three hours thinking about that mole behind your ear is not enough, that one should spend years thinking of it? Tell me, Eddie, does she know that when you’re stressed, one ought to make a mess just so you have the pretext to clean something and calm down? Tell me, Eddie, does she even know that it takes the lightest touch to tickle you and that one mustn’t press too hard on your skin to get a little bit of that laughter of yours for oneself?

The way Richie imagines it is this: after they’ll have killed It (which they will, or else), he’ll stand in front of Eddie, no microphone, no script, and he’ll tug on his collar, and he’ll list everything he has to offer, which, granted, is not much, and Eddie will either have him, or not, but Richie is going to give it his best anyhow.

(And tell me, Eddie, does your Myra know that even when there’s no time for carefully unbuttoning your shirt, one should still unbutton it carefully instead of ripping it off you, because you like your buttons, and you like your shirts? See, Eddie, I know this even though it’s been years, and even though I’ve never had the chance to try and get one off you, never had the — privilege.)

“Are we getting out of here once it’s over?” Eddie asks him once they’re all back below Derry. “Will it even ever _be_ over?”

Richie’s grown, and not just that: he’s growing older and older. He’s outgrown the socks he would wear that summer they almost lost Eddie to Pennywise, and he’s outgrown the glasses he used to look at Eddie through back then, and he’s outgrown the things he used to say to keep others from hearing the things that he _wouldn’t_ say, but he hasn’t outgrown this: twenty-seven years, and when he looks at Eddie in this place where so many things could go wrong, he feels the same as he did at thirteen.

“It will be over,” he says, up to his knees in stinky water and up to his neck in all the things he still has left to do. “One way or another.”

One way or another, but God knows this time _he_ ’s choosing the way.

*

He never kisses Eddie, he wouldn’t dare. Still, sometimes he’ll stare at Eddie’s nose, or at the lobe of Eddie’s ear, or at the inside of Eddie’s knee, and it almost does feel like kissing, as if what he’s doing with his eyes is not just looking but something boys bigger than him would break his nose for.

On those summer days in Derry, he learns carefulness one not-kiss at the time.

*

And Richie’s on the ground, his eyes still rolling back in his head, and there are so many things he hasn’t done because he had no one to do them with: no proms for him, no life-changing dates, no ‘I love you’s, no adopted cats, no shopping lists in two handwritings, no laundry sorted by color into piles of things he wears and things he takes off someone else, but maybe it’s not that he never had anyone to do those things with, maybe it’s just that he never had the one person he could ever be bothered to want them with.

And Eddie’s saying his name, is saying Rich, is shaking him by the shoulders, is talking about having killed It, and here’s the thing: back when Eddie broke his arm, back when It almost had him in that damned house, Richie swore to himself that he’d never lose sight of Eddie like that again, and maybe if Richie was different (“you’re _different_ ,” a girl told him once, handing him one of those ‘Jesus will save you’ pamphlets), and if Eddie was a girl, not losing sight of Eddie could mean looking at him. But the thing is, Richie has spent so much time carefully _not_ looking at Eddie and looking everywhere else to check for threats instead that, by now, he knows well enough that when Eddie has his back to the world, Richie’s job is not to stare into his eyes (and what eyes they are), but over Eddie’s shoulder, at whatever’s waiting there. So when It comes for them, Richie rolls Eddie over just in time and, because he doesn’t have the strength to crawl away, simply stays there, on top of Eddie, something stuck in the ground exactly where they were but a second ago.

“So you know my secret,” he tells It calmly, kneeling over Eddie like a ceiling. “So you know that I love him,” he tells It, and even manages a sheepish smile. “What of it?”

What Richie thinks but has no time to say as Eddie keeps breathing is this: I would always make you angry, and yet, one time, you smiled at me instead of yelling, like you were happy that you had me there, riling you up. You smiled at me, Eddie, and I never wrote songs about it, and I never wrote poems about it, and I never wrote books about it, and I never made movies about it, but here’s another thing I never did: I’ve never, not once, made a joke of it. I’ve spent my whole life on a quest of self-sabotage, and this, loving you, is the only thing I left untouched, the only thing in my waste of a life that I never turned into a punchline. I bet you’d never have guessed, Eddie, that I could love anyone this much, but here I am and always have been, loving you even more.

It wasn’t even that special of a smile, Eddie – nothing to kill for, but I _would_ kill for it. I would kill for it, and I _will_. Because Eddie, love, fuck a world where you don’t get to smile anymore, whoever it is you choose to smile at once this is all over.

And it will be over, won’t it? One way or another.

*

Once, through his smudged glasses, Richie sees a bully coming for them, shoving people aside, and he drags Eddie to the nearest bathroom and locks them up in the corner stall. It’s not a lot of space, and Richie wishes both that there’d be more of it, and less. Eddie glares at him but Richie puts a finger to his lips to silence him, and as they wait it out, here’s what he decides:

The next time we’re locked somewhere like this together, it’ll be different, and it’ll be by choice.

Of course, they end up never getting locked anywhere together again, and, eventually, Richie moves away like all of them, leaving the Derry full of scary, wonderful things he never got to do behind.

“You and I, we have unfinished business,” he ends up telling his reflection, in the middle of packing his essentials after Mike’s call. Essentials include: his wallet, his phone, aspirin, the ugliest shirt he owns, and the pocket knife he used at thirteen to carve a pipe dream into a wooden board on the side of a road.

*

Later, when they’re all wading through water, Eddie stares at him with some sweet resignation, and Richie almost drowns himself then and there.

“Who were you talking about anyway?” Eddie asks, like he doesn’t know, the _bastard_ , except Richie’s pretty sure that he’s only asking for Richie’s benefit, so Richie has a foothold of a sort when he tells Eddie.

“I don’t have much to offer—” he starts, only he ends up not having to say anything at all because Eddie smiles at him, a smile that Richie would ( _has_ ) killed for.

“Whatever you have to offer, I’ll take it,” Eddie says, then scowls. “This water is even more disgusting than I remember.”

“Eddie,” Richie says and resists the urge to fold a hand over his heart to keep it quiet. “You’re married.”

Eddie looks thoughtful for a moment.

“I suppose so,” he ends up saying, frowning like it’s a math problem. “Do you know, there’s that fence on the side of the road here in Derry, right next to the tunnel, with an ‘R + E’ scratched into the wood. Once, I spent far too long trying to think of all the names beginning with those letters that weren’t ours.”

Richie leans forward and, slowly, slowly, buries his face in the crook of Eddie’s neck and breathes him in – the sewers, the sweat, the fear, all of it. Eddie bends his head until his nose nudges the back of Richie’s head, and maybe, miraculously, what made Eddie’s life miserable wasn’t only the lack of post-it notes and properly fried eggs. Gently, Richie takes Eddie’s hand in his, and curls the other one around that old knife that, what wonder, he still has in his pocket.

The last thing he decides in Derry before they leave it behind for good is this: he is never watching Eddie die again because he was made for watching him live. 

**Author's Note:**

> I ended up not writing much about it, but the basis for this whole fic was how when you have a crush on someone of the same gender, you have to be so careful about watching them that sometimes watching them means /not/ watching them :,) 
> 
> Thank you for reading and please, consider leaving a comment if you have any thoughts! <3 (I'm on tumblr @yoyointhegarden if you care for the occasional poetry reblog and unhealthy amounts of fangirling)


End file.
